


Got That Friday Feeling Again

by NancyBrown



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Genre: Community: reel_torchwood, F/M, Groundhog Day, M/M, Owen Dies A Lot, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-28
Updated: 2015-09-30
Packaged: 2018-04-23 18:37:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4887559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NancyBrown/pseuds/NancyBrown
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>HELP HELP HELP HELP</p><p>I AM TRAPPED IN A TIME BUBBLE</p><p>The magic marker all over the nice chintz wallpaper bled and smeared as Owen wrote in increasingly desperate lettering across the walls. Ls and Ps dragged down, wiggly at the end or drawn out in slashed strokes.</p><p>He ignored the pounding on the door frame. He'd shoved the wardrobe in front, which always kept Jack out for twenty three and a half minutes. He ignored the sweat and tears and snot dripping down his face, down his mouth. He ignored the high-pitched singing from his own throat, "If you want my future, forget my past," chanted over and over.</p><p>HELP</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: suicide (Owen), character death (also Owen), mention of spray from "Everything Changes" (still Owen), swearing (guess who)  
> Beta: Rabecka, with enormous thanks for the edits and for all the sounding board assists while this came into shape. All remaining errors are mine.  
> Rating: Adult for language  
> Spoilers: up through Torchwood episode "Meat" and Doctor Who episode "Deep Breath"  
> Disclaimer: Groundhog Day is the property of Columbia Pictures. Torchwood and Doctor Who belong to the BBC.  
> Author's Notes: Written for reel_torchwood Screening 8, with a tip of the hat to the previous reel_tw Groundhog Day fic, but really, this plot is designed to be told over and over and over and ...

***  
Chapter One  
***

" _So tell me what you want, what you really, really want  
I'll tell you what I want, what I really, really want!_ " 

Owen lay in the bed which wasn't his, and he listened to the Spice Girls. After a while, someone knocked on the bedroom door. It would be Toshiko, who always knocked first and tentatively, asking if he felt ill. If he lay still and didn't respond, Jack would thump on the door frame four minutes later.

Owen counted to twenty-seven as Jack growled at him through the wood, and then broke his way into the room.

He shook Owen by the right shoulder, face turning from annoyance to concern as he took in Owen's quiet but alive form still in the bed. Within five seconds, Jack would ask him if he was okay, and if Owen told him what was really wrong, Jack would ask Tosh to step out of the room so he could dispense some fucking useless advice stemming from that two weeks he spent doing too many drugs and having too much sex with Captain Homicide.

Every fucking day.

"Hey, you okay?"

Owen began to weep.

***

Owen crawled in to the Hub at half past dark with a snarl that turned into a yawn midway. His mood was not improved by the paper cup of coffee shoved in his direction, but he spared his automatic two fingered reply in hopes of not having the next cup spat into upon delivery. He sucked down three quarters of the cup before he made eye contact with anyone. When he finally looked up, he noticed the rest had duffle bags already lined up by the door to the underground garage.

"I thought you were joking about packing a bag."

Jack finished typing something into that stupid fucking strap on his wrist. Lights around the Hub flickered and dimmed with each press. "I never joke about packing an overnight bag."

"I am not going fucking camping again with you lot. Ever." By this time, he was awake enough to see winces cross the faces of his colleagues at the mention of their last expedition. Too late to take it back now. "I'm staying here."

Gwen said, "We're going to Glasgow." She pushed past him, annoyance writ large in every gesture. Come to think of it, their last camping trip had started them down their own shared path of terrible mistakes which had felt pretty fucking amazing at the time. The trip hadn't been all bad.

"Get what you need from Medical, then go home," Jack said. "We'll pick you up at yours with your bag packed for two to three days. Next time, listen."

Toshiko followed Owen down into the autopsy area, standing on the steps as he rummaged through his drawers looking for supplies. He tossed a handful of bandages onto the slab. "Any idea why we're going on this merry trip to hell?"

Tosh shrugged. "Archie called early this morning. Something's going on in the long term storage areas of Torchwood House."

"Fantastic. An artefact's gone haywire again. We don't all need to go. Send Ianto. You tag along if it's something technical. Solved."

"You're going," Jack's voice came down from the upper level, and that was that.

"What time is the flight?"

Tosh grimaced and Owen swore. "Six hours in a car with you lot?"

"It could be fun," she said, not sounding enthused.

"Shouldn't you be packing?"

"I'm packed. We're waiting on you. I could help." She wore that same hopeful smile she always did. It grated on his nerves, and grated more when he knew he shouldn't shout at her.

"Yeah," he said. "Why don't you grab the Bekaran scanner and make sure it's safe to travel." That would keep her busy and out of his hair.

"Sure."

***

By hour four, Jack's supply of car games, even the obscene ones, had dwindled to nothing. Gwen phoned Rhys then attempted to have a private conversation with him whilst four other people tried not to listen in. Ianto sat stewing beside Owen in the back, still angry and claiming Owen had cheated on the last game. Tosh had won the front seat at the last rest and was fiddling with the radio.

"Oh, I like this one," she said, and turned up the Spice Girls, who let the entire car know what they really, really wanted.

Jack reached over and dialled in a station he liked, then started singing.

Owen thumped his head on the glass. "Are we there yet?"

***

They disembarked at Torchwood House. Ianto took the keys and sped off, a little too fast, towards their lodgings in order to check in and drop off their bags. Archie met them at the gate, a stocky bloke who appeared to be constructed of layered jumpers and cigar smoke. He shook hands with Jack and flirted with the girls. He'd have had better luck flirting with Jack, but he'd been with Torchwood long enough to know that already.

"You said it was urgent," Jack said, striking a pose against the afternoon light. Anyone else would look like a prat. Jack made it work, the smug arse.

"I said it could be. Still not sure." A jumper peeled aside long enough for Archie to dig out something from one pocket. Owen expected alien thingamafuckery, but the old man only extracted a new cigar and lit it nervously. "We've got an infestation."

Tosh wrinkled her nose. She wasn't a fan of rats or mice. Gwen wiped her arms in that absent way she did when she thought there was a flying insect nearby. "Aliens?" Owen guessed. This was Torchwood, after all. If Archie had beetles in the wood, they probably spoke English and demanded voting rights.

"Ghosts," said Archie. Jack stared at him sceptically. "Or could be aliens. Told you I wasn't sure."

Jack folded his arms. He adopted a patient tone Owen had heard plenty of times, usually when some old dear had got hold of a bit of nasty alien rubbish, and their captain's usual tricks weren't panning out. He'd be very calm, and only a little flirtatious, at the same time no doubt digging through his memories to see if he was addressing one of the many notches on his camp bed post. "Why don't you tell us what happened? You wouldn't say on the phone."

"Phones are tapped."

"We know," Tosh said. "We're tapping them."

"Not us, lass. Them. Not everyone in the government likes the fact we outrank them. Lot of them are angry about that incident at One. They'll see us in the ground, Jack. They're listening for weaknesses."

Jack shrugged. "They can try." He offered a bright smile to quell Archie's paranoia, with a quick glance to Owen, which meant for him to give Two's director and sole employee a physical to check for advancing dementia or brain worms.

Archie led them onto the grounds and into the vast manor house that hid the bulk of Torchwood's remaining archives. Three had a nice little cache in Cardiff, but as they walked, Owen realised that was all they had.

"This place is enormous," said Gwen, a bit awestruck, a bit taking Jack's lead and flirting back with Archie. She took his arm. "I imagine there's a tonne of stories you could tell."

"Oh, I could." As Archie launched into a brief history of fuck this depressing place, Jack twitched his head, directing Owen and Tosh over to the entrance for the first locked vault. "I'll let Gwen do her thing. You two search in here."

"For what?" Tosh asked. She had a scanner in her hand, but it was turned off. "We've dealt with ghosts before. They're not real."

"No, but something may be triggering another time event or interdimensional tear. Or it could be a holoprojector." Jack finished tapping his wrist, and the lock turned green. The door slid open. He pushed Owen and Tosh into the room, and followed them, letting the door close behind them.

Owen said, "You better not have locked us in here."

"Relax. It opens from this side." Jack lowered his voice. "I'm not sure what's going on. Maybe there is an event. Maybe Archie's hallucinating. Owen, I want you to explore option B. Toshiko, welcome to Candyland." He gestured. "Archie doesn't usually let me poke around here. He thinks I'll want to take all the good toys back to Cardiff."

"Don't you?"

"Of course. And we will." The smile turned feral, and a little dark. Jack could play Happy Uncle, but he was just as quick to slit someone's throat if he thought their death was necessary. "You get to decide what we bring home."

Her eyes lit up, the proverbial kid at proverbial Christmas about to stuff herself with proverbial pudding. "Anything?"

"Within reason. We can't haul the whole thing back unless you've finished that mass transducer?" He turned it into a question, but she shook her head. "Well, they might have one in storage here. Look around."

"Right," Owen said, "and you will be doing what while she's stealing Two's loot and I'm examining Mister Jumper?"

"Looking for ghosts."

***

Four hours later and neither ghosts nor aliens spotted, Jack called off the search. "Archie? Join us for a drink?"

"Nah. I've seen you at pubs. You'll be in tomorrow to keep looking?" he asked with a worried look.

"First thing," Jack promised, and led the rest of them out of the darkening halls out to the SUV. Owen grabbed shotgun as Jack pulled the car down the drive. "How is he?"

Archie had smelt of smoke and droned on forever, and Owen had better things to do. He felt not one iota of guilt at the brevity of the exam he'd performed. "Bit of hypertension, no obvious sign of mental deterioration. He did keep going on about the lake monsters." Owen glanced at Jack.

"Those are real."

"Fine. No reason to think he's more bonkers than usual, then."

Gwen said from the back, "He seems nice. Lonely, though. He said it's been years since he's had anyone else working with him here."

Jack drove toward the village; Torchwood House stood quite a bit outside Glasgow proper, which was fine with Owen. The last time Archie'd brought them up here, Owen's wallet had been stolen when he'd gone to the city centre on an errand. He hated Scotland and suspected Scotland hated him right back.

Jack said, "The Glasgow location was where the Institute was founded. Queen Vicky established it right where we were standing today after a visit from two people in a blue phone box."

"But I thought Torchwood was originally founded to hunt down the Doctor?"

"I never said it was a good visit. Anyway, they used to be the big Torchwood team. The rest of us were satellite offices doing our own thing. The organisation got shuffled a decade ago."

"Fifty-two years," Ianto piped up from the back seat.

"Seems like last week," Jack said, annoyed by the constant interruptions. Owen worried there would soon be more singing. "It's just Archie now. The rest, well, you know Torchwood."

Gwen took the hopeful option. "Did any of them retire?"

"Yes," Jack said, confidently, which lifted the spirits of the four listeners. Then after a moment, he added, "Kind of. A few left on the disability plan." Ah. The mood in the car deflated. The disability plan wasn't better than getting sacked. Both came with a big dose of Retcon, and usually without the use of one or more limbs. The only employees to have crawled out of Torchwood with their memories intact had been the twenty-odd survivors of the London disaster. Several of those had topped themselves. Only one had been fucking stupid enough to come back.

The sombre group went into the local for supper. Owen wondered how hard it would be to shake free of the rest of the team and check out any willing and lovely members of the suburban Glaswegian culture. The beer wasn't bad, and the food wasn't good, and he rapidly gave up any hope of pulling tonight.

He went back to the bed and breakfast with the team, and was pleased to get his own room without having to complain. That was worth not harassing Ianto over how many rooms he'd reserved. There'd been five at St. David's. Owen only counted four keys tonight. Anything was better than kipping at that lonely old manor house, crowded with ghosts and, Jack had teased, werewolves. Owen could believe either. In contrast, the B&B was cheery and clean, quilts on every bed and a daft but pleasant smile on the landlady's face as she welcomed them to her roomy home away from home.

He went to his own room, considered the bathtub, then dropped onto his feather bed still clothed, falling asleep with his face in the pillow.

***

" _So tell me what you want, what you really really want!_ "

Owen groaned and slapped the radio alarm clock until the Spice Girls shut up. He closed his eyes again until the thirty-second delay told him what he had to do to be their lover. Then he got out of bed, yawning and groaning and wishing he was anywhere but fucking Scotland.

He stumbled down the stairs to the dining room. The rest of the team had gathered at one small table, grumbling into their own breakfasts. Gwen was in dieting-for-the-wedding mode with only dry toast on her plate. Tosh, clearly not willing to be seen eating a full breakfast next to Gwen, satisfied herself with a very small bowl of porridge. Ianto was finishing his second cup of coffee, forgoing the food entirely and looking like Jack hadn't let him sleep a wink. Jack's plate was filled with bacon, toast, and pastries, all of which he enjoyed oblivious to anyone else's breakfast choices as he told stories about Archie from twenty years ago.

Owen stared at the spread on the sideboard, grabbed a pastry, then sat at the next table hoping enough coffee would still his pounding headache. Around him, the other guests chatted about the weather, and about some festival coming up. A bloke next to Owen jostled his elbow. "What you think about the snow, then?"

Owen blinked at him. Clearly he was being addressed. Snow? "It's September."

"Yeah but they're calling for thirty centimetres. What d'you think?"

"As a medical doctor, I advise you to see someone about those hallucinations."

"Owen," said Jack with a warning tone.

"Tell me we're driving back today."

"Tonight," Gwen said, with a sharp look to Jack, who sighed and nodded.

***

Whatever the fuck festival was going on, all the local idiots were aflutter bustling around. "Why couldn't this have waited?" 

Tosh had her scanner out, discreetly pretending it was her mobile. "Maybe someone here caused the disturbance Archie saw."

Owen glanced around them as they walked to where the SUV was parked. A homeless bloke stinking of bad decisions mumbled for spare coins, staring at them with his one bloodshot eye. A mummy with two little snotty brats tagging along promised sweets if her darlings would shut the fuck up for a minute, only phrased for the Teletubbies crowd. An old fart who appeared to be ninety percent eyebrows argued with his far too young girlfriend about the time before storming off. Two old grannies toddled together down the road, speaking loudly to each other. Owen shuddered. The faster they found out what was up with Archie and got back home, the better. Cardiff was a hole in the ground, but it wasn't this bad.

Jack said, "All right, same plan as yesterday. Look for whatever is causing Archie's ghosts, and take inventory of anything we can take back with us." He was met with sleepy nods

As they drove back to Torchwood House, grey clouds gathered overhead. Gwen said, "Do you think it will snow? Only I promised Rhys I'd be home tonight." She missed the collective eye roll from the rest of her colleagues, which was for the best.

"Not this early in the year," Ianto said with a reassuring confidence which turned out to be one hundred percent misplaced.

Archie met them at the gate again, this time with a new jumper and an apology already on his face. Jack didn't even get out of the car before he asked, "What happened?"

"Well," said Archie, stretching the word to four delaying syllables, "I couldn't sleep so well last night. I took a look around the grounds myself. I may have set something off."

"May have?" Jack asked with a great deal of patience.

"Did," Archie admitted. "I was looking for the holoprojector. You remember that one." Jack nodded curtly. "I thought it was behind a few boxes. Well, I moved them, and I dropped one." He stared at Jack.

"And?"

"And the Chula Weather Remapper activated." He looked into the darkening sky. "I did turn it off, but we might be in for a spell of weather. Just a bit."

Jack followed his glance and did some mental maths. "If we leave right now, we can be stranded on M74 in a village we've never heard of. Who's interested?" He was greeted with grumbles and Gwen pulling out her mobile to phone Rhys with an apology which turned into a shouting match. Jack glared at Archie. "How long?"

"Day or two. You remember the Remapper. You lot unearthed it in Cardiff right after Christmas in '62 and chucked it here for safe keeping a few months later."

Beside him, Owen noticed Toshiko casually pull up weather data from December 1962 and January 1963. Her face fell as she read her tiny screen. He read over her shoulder and swore. Any hope of going home was lost with the oncoming storm.

They plodded into Torchwood House once more, Gwen lagging behind to keep her mobile signal. "Okay, kids," Jack said amiably. "Back to work. If it snows, I'll buy you all hot cocoas tomorrow." He handed out assignments to search the dusty old building and threatened to check up on each of them. As they came into the entrance hall, Tosh slung her handbag over her shoulder, knocking into Ianto beside her, who stumbled and tipped over a coat tree, which landed with a great clatter. Tosh murmured an apology as Gwen stifled a giggle. "And try not to break things," Jack said, helping him right it as a blush radiated over Ianto's whole face.

Owen headed towards his assigned room with bad grace, checking boxes against the inventory Archie had printed off for each of them. Yesterday hadn't turned up much. Today wasn't looking any more productive. Behind him, Gwen said, "Are you sure about this? I really don't relish the idea of being snowed in here."

"We will be fine," Jack said. "It might not even snow at all."

***

It snowed.

Great wet flakes drifted through the air as Ianto brought them lunch and complained about the road conditions. White lumps already spread over the lawns, thick as bird shit and just as welcome.

"It's worse to the south," Tosh said, checking the news feeds as she ate her sandwich. "The highways may shut down."

Ignoring Gwen's glare, Jack declared their plan to stay put a victory for road safety, and he refused to worry about the weather for the rest of their increasingly grumpy luncheon. Owen went back to his own search, only to be interrupted a few hours later by Jack's voice in his ear ordering them all to the main hall.

Another piece of alien junk sat on a small table in the hall. Tosh scanned the thing whilst Jack moved his hands around, careful not to touch although someone had clearly moved whatever it was already. Archie leaned his head over in curiosity.

"What's the good news?" Gwen asked.

"Holoprojector," Tosh said. "Activated by psychic energy. Anyone at a Psy level of two or higher can activate it, even by accident." She smiled kindly at Archie. "You're a four?"

"Last they measured me, yeah."

Jack folded his arms. "Interran party toy. Thirtieth century. This one was miscategorised as a diary." He glanced at Archie, who shrugged. "We can leave it, or I can try to pull the power supply. Your ghosts, your call."

"How do we control the holoprojector?" Gwen asked, stepping closer. "Couldn't we just turn the thing off by thinking?"

"Doubtful," said Jack. "Give it a go."

"Me?"

"You're a six. You should be a natural."

"What's that mean?" she asked, suspicion blooming over her face. Owen was dying to know as well, but wouldn't say.

"It's one of your recruitment tests. You were all evaluated when I brought you on."

Tosh frowned. "What?"

Jack waved his hand dismissively. Ianto coughed and said, "Torchwood standard procedure. Torchwood One had mandatory evaluation and training." Beside him, the directors of Torchwood Two and Torchwood Three eloquently expressed their shared opinion of One's policies without saying a word.

Owen didn't remember any psychic testing. He did remember more than one Retcon test. Bloody Jack gave him more tests then wiped his memory. The horny bastard probably snogged him, too.

Gwen looked sceptical but approached the device. "How does it work?"

Jack explained as Tosh typed notes quickly into her data pad. Gwen's expression melted into curiosity. Ianto coughed and disappeared out to the SUV. Owen was sure he'd been surreptitiously filling the boot with Tosh's better finds all day. Owen stood there bored, but not bored enough to help Ianto with the petty larceny of Two's goodies.

Eventually, with a twinkle of blue lights, the holoprojector filled the room with faces. Owen didn't know most of them. Tosh said, "That's Dot Branning." She glanced at Gwen. "You said you didn't watch Eastenders."

"I don't keep up with it," Gwen said, focusing on the holoprojector. "This is really something."

"Turn it off," Jack said. "Or, don't. I've got suggestions of some good holograms you could show."

"Please no," said Owen, horrified at the kind of videos Captain Jack would enjoy. Fortunately, the images faded, even Dot, and the blue lights dimmed to nothing. "Great. Ghost issue solved. Can we leave now?"

Archie tried talking them into spending the night. "It's a lovely manor. I have a night here now and then. And you've sorted out the ghosts."

"Maybe next time," said Jack.

Ianto came back in, snow melting on his jacket. "Are we staying or heading back to the village? The roads aren't getting better."

"We're going." Jack clapped Archie on the shoulder. "Need a lift back to yours?"

"I'll stay, thanks."

"Right. We'll be heading back to Cardiff tomorrow as soon as the roads are clear." They exchanged their goodbyes as the team loaded up the last of their own gear and whatever easily-pocketed items remained. Archie would blow a fuse when he discovered how many artefacts had walked out today. Not Owen's problem.

The drive back to the bed and breakfast went slowly and with a ton of Welsh-accented swearing at every slick patch, until at last they parked in the same spot as this morning.

Gwen said, "It's not so bad out right now. Who wants to visit the festival?" She flashed an extra encouraging smile, not directly reminding them all she wasn't home tonight with her idiot fiancé because of business and they owed her, but allowing that opening.

"Pass," said Owen.

Tosh said, "It could be fun."

Jack looked dreamily at the lights. "Rides, bobbing for apples. Kewpie dolls!" He flashed a grin towards Ianto. "Did I ever tell you that Kewpie dolls are based on Turanian fertility idols?"

"You didn't. We wanted to look at, ah, that thing?" said Ianto to Jack, who immediately nodded. Owen didn't want to know.

"Right. That." He smiled. "Have fun, kids."

"Owen?" Tosh asked, as the pair disappeared into the homey entrance of the B&B, no doubt to shag themselves stupid.

"Not my way to spend a Friday night, thanks." There was a pub with his name on it close by, and surely some bird who wasn't unwilling. He ignored the disappointed look on Tosh's face, before Gwen grabbed her arm and pulled her away towards the snow-covered bunting. He sighed and headed towards the pub.

He got a good seat at the bar, chatted up a few likely-looking candidates for Mrs. Right Here Right Now, and struck out with all of them. He'd give a lot to have that body spray back, he thought, checking out an otherwise pretty blonde with a slight case of nystagmus. Sure, Jack had shouted his ear off after, and told him in no uncertain terms if anyone was found using it again, they'd have to surgically remove his boot from their arse. Sure, looking at the situation from the perspective that "no" didn't mean "yes if you're a bit addled on alien sex hormones," he probably shouldn't use the stuff again. Still, checking out the legs on that girl, Owen would have been happy to balance the needs of the many against the needs of his cock.

More people bustled into the pub, bringing their funfair food and prizes and loud chatter, all of them spilling over onto him. Any chance he had of pulling tonight was smothered under a large stuffed blue bear and an ugly doll both carried by the fat bloke who grabbed the chair next to him. The doll squeaked mournfully as Owen squeezed it, shoving the mess out of his space. The fat bloke muttered an apology but didn't move.

Owen left in defeat and walked back to the B&B in the lightly falling snow.

***

" _So tell me what you want, what you really really want!_ "

Owen groaned. He had a headache and he felt as though he'd barely slept. His hand reached for the snooze, eventually earning himself thirty more seconds of quiet. He groaned again.

He did the usual check when he wasn't home in his own bed. No partner asleep beside him, which meant no awkward slipping out. Slight smell of must under a shit ton of potpourri. Right. That same bed and breakfast in Scotland. Fuck. Maybe the roads had been cleared in the night and they could go back to fucking Wales. The thought was almost not worth getting out of bed.

Eventually he threw off the covers. His clothes from yesterday were back in his bag, as folded as they ever were. Owen gave them the sniff test, decided they passed, and dressed. He glanced out the window and noticed the grey sky with no snow. Even better. The temperature had warmed up overnight, melting the mess away.

In a slightly better mood, he made his way downstairs for breakfast. The others sat around one table. Jack shovelled a forkful of bacon into his mouth as he laughed. "And then, Archie said, 'I swear, the loch was here yesterday!'"

The girls made an attempt at smiles. Gwen had only a bit of dry toast on her plate. Once again, Toshiko had opted for the smallest bowl of porridge possible. Ianto looked just as rough as yesterday. Owen wasn't about to have a long talk with Jack about letting his whatever get a little more fucking sleep with a little less fucking. Not his problem.

He glanced at the table. Same selections as yesterday. The pastry hadn't been very good. He tried a small plate of bacon and toast and sat at the next table over.

"What you think about the snow, then?" The bloke beside him nudged Owen with one very brave elbow.

"Does it usually melt that fast?"

"Melt?" The bloke looked confused. "They're calling for thirty centimetres. What d'you think?"

"I think you're hungover, mate. The storm was yesterday."

"What storm?"

Jack had stopped talking about Archie, and he looked at Owen curiously. He didn't say another word until the time came to shuttle the team out the door. Owen followed last, his headache fading. Outside, the locals were out in force for whatever the fuck festival they had here in Scotland. Sheep would be involved somehow, he was certain.

Tosh pulled her scanner from her handbag, pretending it was her mobile. "Maybe someone here caused the disturbance Archie saw."

An alarm, just as obnoxious as the one which had awakened him this morning, played in the back of his head, and grew louder as he looked around. A homeless bloke pan-handled for spare coins, and Owen was positive Gwen had given him a coin the same way yesterday, even digging for her coin purse with the same polite smile. Not far away, a mummy dragged her two kiddies in a hurry, promising sweets, wandering right by two loudly inappropriate grannies.

Owen rubbed his head. Déjà vu. He really needed to get out of this bloody place and somewhere sane with aliens and Weevils.

Jack said, "All right, same plan as yesterday. Look for whatever is causing Archie's ghosts, and take inventory of anything we can take back with us."

"I thought we were headed home," Owen said. The others stared at him. "We found the artefact already."

"No," Jack said, with less patience than he might. "We're working today. We'll head home tonight."

As they drove, Gwen said, "Do you think it will snow? Only I promised Rhys I'd be home tonight."

At that moment, the alarm in his head blared loudly and a cold pit filled his stomach. "Stop the car."

Jack pulled over, and Owen climbed out of the SUV. Overhead, grey clouds threatened snow. He took several deep breaths of cold air, staring. Behind him, he heard the doors slam. "Owen?" asked Tosh, because of course she'd have come over. "You all right?"

He didn't say anything at first. He felt a hand on his shoulder, but not Tosh's. He turned and saw Jack there, flanked by the rest of the team. "Something you need to tell us?"

He gulped. "Any of you remember it snowing yesterday?" He was greeted with shaken heads. "Shit."

"Time loop," Jack said sympathetically. "First time through?"

"Yeah. This morning started out exactly like yesterday. It snowed yesterday. Closed the highway."

Tosh tapped her scanner looking for information. "There's a bad storm brewing."

Gwen said kindly, "There wasn't any snow yesterday."

"Not for us," said Jack. "Anyone else reliving the day?" The others shook their heads. He sighed, and then he took Owen by the shoulder. "Let's go have a chat. Ianto, phone Archie and tell him we'll be delayed. Gwen, take the keys and keep the car warm. It's a witch's tit out here. Tosh, find out what you can about this snow storm. Owen, step into my office."

When they had walked a bit away from the SUV and out of earshot of the rest, Jack paused. "Did you touch anything yesterday at Torchwood House?"

"A couple dozen things. God knows what you lot played with." He pointed up. "This storm? Archie broke the Chula weather remapper. Apparently you found it in '62 and caused a fuckup then?"

Jack grinned to himself, and Owen just knew he was remembering how he'd kept warm during that previous snowstorm. "Okay, I believe you. They might or might not. The fact that you're the only one who remembers anything says you're the one at the centre of it all."

"So where are the rest of you? Am I inside some fucking time bubble or something?"

"We all are. And we won't be able to leave until it's broken."

"You've broken out of these before, right? You and Captain Murder Spree."

A dark look crossed Jack's face. "Yeah, but it took us five years to figure the way out. You might be stuck for a long, long time, and none of us will know what's happened to you. For us, only one day will pass."

Owen tried to sort this out. "It's only been one day for me."

"True. You might be able to break out after one rotation. Usually that's sparked by a particular event: death, end of the world, that sort of thing, with a chance at a redo. I did one of those … " He stopped talking suddenly, face closing off like a trap. He didn't like talking about his ex, but whatever he was touching on now was absolutely out of bounds. "Anyway, sometimes someone else breaks the loop for you."

"In the meantime, what do I do?"

Jack shrugged. "When I was stuck with him, we had a lot of sex and did a lot of drugs, and I read a lot of books and learned a lot of card tricks. You could pick up a hobby. But Owen? You might think nothing you do in the loop has any consequences, and broadly, you'd be right. You won't go to prison. You won't get fat, or sick, and if you are looping the way I did, you won't even be able to die. But everything you do stays happened for you." He picked his words carefully, like wildflowers. "I undid the consequences of everything that happened during my time loop, but I can never undo having been the man who did those things, no matter how long I live."

Owen was freezing out here in the windy cold and gathering gloom, and his immortal boss was talking to him like a concerned dad before his first date. "All right. Advice noted."

"Good." Jack patted him on the arm. "Today we'll try to sort out what sent you into the loop. If you loop tomorrow, you'll have to explain it to us again. Tosh will ask a lot of questions. Let her. She's got the best chance of helping you."

Owen looked at Jack's wrist strap. "What about that? Didn't you say it let you travel through time?"

"Broken." A twitch of lip Owen couldn't read flickered over Jack's face and vanished. "Anyway, they wouldn't work in the middle of a time bubble. Sorry."

They returned to the SUV. Jack gave a shorter explanation than Owen would have. "You two," he pointed to Gwen and Ianto, "keep searching. Wider parameters this time. Anything that might have started this loop, bring it to me."

As soon as they arrived, Jack cut short Archie's apology about the impending snow and caught him up to speed on Owen's predicament. "Any ideas?"

"I can go through the inventory, but I can't think of a thing. Sorry, lad," he said to Owen, patting him on the arm sympathetically. Puffs of smoke came off today's jumper. As they walked inside, Tosh slung her bag over her shoulder, bumping into Ianto, who knocked into the coat tree. Owen winced as it clattered to the floor.

***


	2. Chapter 2

***  
Chapter Two  
***

Tosh had questions, lots of questions: anything he'd observed yesterday, anything he remembered happening differently today, people he'd seen, anything he'd touched or dropped. She brought out three scanners from her bag that, strictly speaking, should never have left the Hub. Jack helpfully retrieved four more thanks to Archie's inventory. Each alien artefact hummed and scanned Owen until he was sure he'd wind up mutated with three-headed sperm.

"You'll be fine," Jack said, but he said it in his 'lying to get someone to shut up' voice.

Ianto went out for sandwiches at lunchtime and came back whinging about the snowy roads. Owen found himself facing the same bland sandwich he'd eaten yesterday as he listened to Gwen complain about not seeing Rhys. "Look on the bright side," Owen said. "If we really are in a time loop, he won't notice you're gone."

"I'll notice," she replied, but seemed appeased. She wouldn't notice, not the way Owen would.

The afternoon saw them all on the search for the ghost artefact, which Owen couldn't remember the location of, and for the time loop artefact, which could be anything, and any artefact Tosh might like to pop into the boot before they went home, which were many. Archie helped out, identifying unmarked boxes and telling the same stories he'd told yesterday. As the sky darkened, Jack offered to call off the hunt, but no one took him up on it. Owen supposed he ought to feel grateful. Instead he felt irritated, sure they'd expect his gratitude, and he grumbled as room after room turned up nothing.

Gwen said, "This place isn't so bad. Lots of space. We can kip here tonight. Might break the loop?" The expressions on Tosh and Jack's faces were dubious, Owen noticed, and they'd be in the best position to say.

"That sounds great," he said, because why the fuck not? Torchwood House was haunted, and the bed and breakfast was a time vortex. 

Ianto ducked out to the SUV and came back with a hamper of food. "I thought we might stay. Provisions for later. Archie, is there a kitchen somewhere?"

Archie grinned. "Only the largest you've ever seen." He guided Ianto away, praising the culinary masterpiece that was the main kitchen of the manor house to someone who lived entirely on takeaway and caffeine.

As they returned to their task, Gwen sidled into the same room where Owen was working. "How are you doing, Owen? Only, this has to be pretty difficult to deal with, yeah?" She smiled kindly in the uneven light, flickering bulbs warning of the precarious electrical wiring installed throughout the older areas of the building.

"I'm fine." He kept the annoyance out of his voice. Gwen hadn't spoken to him much after they'd broken things off, until Jack went away and everything went to shit. These days she pretended nothing had ever happened, and had started mothering him along with the rest of the team. Even after Jack's return, she'd drop by for chats, or try to cozen them all into sing-a-longs in the car. She meant well. If Gwen sometimes mistook their top secret alien fighting organisation for a wayward Girl Guide troop, at least the biscuits were good.

"You've just done the one loop? Maybe it'll just be that, then."

"Sure." He offered her a quick smile. "Since you're here, can you help me inventory this room? We'll get done faster."

"My thoughts exactly." She dove right in, carefully marking off everything they found. Denebian flutes, three. Itching ray, origin unknown. Gr'nak herbicide, one kilo. Had there ever been any categorisation to this stuff?

He half-listened to Gwen's chatter as they worked, putting in grunts and nods as he thought appropriate. Wedding plans. Something her mum wanted her to reserve at the resort, and her bridesmaids agreed. An unexpected ache hit him in his sternum, caught in a quick memory of Katie fussing over dresses and table decorations and invitations for guests who never came.

"You know, Gwen, if I'm the one in a time loop, nothing you lot do matters. You could go right now and have one off with Captain Charm, and you wouldn't even feel guilty in the morning."

Gwen coloured red and looked as though she was about to punch him. Instead, she took a breath and said, "Good to know your experience hasn't changed you." She threw the inventory to the floor and stormed out.

Fine. He liked it quiet. After a few minutes, he knew he wasn't going to find anything. Too wound up, too annoyed. Whatever. He could stay here and not be bothered by concerned co-workers. God, he hoped he woke up tomorrow with whatever the fuck this was completed. He tried settling in for a nap, but woke almost immediately when Ianto came into the room.

His head swivelled, looking for Owen before finding him in his cosy little corner. His mouth turned in a disapproving frown. "If you're awake, Tosh has found something."

"Time loop?"

"The holoprojector you talked about." Ianto had remained sceptical all day about Owen's story. For the first time, he looked like he might actually believe Owen wasn't pulling some kind of prank.

"You lot play with the projector. I'm going to go back to searching."

"Pillows are in the chest down the hall," Ianto said.

"Fuck off."

By supper, none of them had found the time machine or whatever the fuck it was, and Gwen had worked out the basics of the stupid holoprojector. Whilst the others laughed and chatted in the ridiculously formal dining room, the large windows looking out onto the gathering snow, Owen prayed his day would end normally and turn into tomorrow.

He dove back into the storage areas with renewed vigour. Something in here had done this to him. Had to be. Much later, and still no luck, Archie helped them find the old bedrooms, of which there were plenty. The beds were musty and the sheets were forty years old, back from when this facility had still been active rather than a relic. The bedbugs colonies were probably older than some cities in the States.

"I have my own little room here," said Archie. "The office is in the city, but I like staying here of a night. Reminds me of better times."

Jack said, "You took over after the better times were almost done."

"Says you." He winked at Jack and turned in, wishing them all a good night. He unlocked five bedrooms. Owen half-expected Jack to suggest they pile into one room for safety's sake, and also for him to cajole them all into that orgy he'd been planning. But no. The girls went into their rooms, and Owen went into his, and he was positive the room next to his stayed empty, saving him from listening to two blokes fucking.

Now there was a thought. He knew if he knocked on Toshiko's door, tonight or any other night, she'd let him in. And that, he admitted to himself, was why he never did. He'd gone for Gwen because he'd known she loathed him, and herself for wanting him. That was a challenge, and challenge meant passion without emotion getting in the way of getting off. Tosh wanted emotion and shared breakfasts, and things Owen had no intention of ever experiencing again. Better to screw and sneak away. Better not to feel, and keep from feeling bad ever again.

Unable to sleep with these thoughts in his head, he had one himself and slipped into an unhappy sleep.

***

The Spice Girls woke him to tell him what he had to do to be their lover. Owen cracked his eyes open enough to see that he was back in his bed at the B&B. He punched the alarm until it broke, and settled back amongst the quilts.

Half an hour later, there was a knock on the door.

"It's going to snow, and the ghost artefact is in room seven. Call Archie."

"Owen."

He refused to answer, snuggling deeper into his blankets. Outside, he listened to one side of a conversation where Jack tried not to lose his temper with the director of Torchwood Glasgow.

"Owen? Say for a minute you're right. How did you know that?"

"I'm omnipotent."

The door broke down ten seconds later. Jack had his Webley out. The others hovered in the doorway. Owen blinked at them. He looked at Jack. "Time loop. I'm sleeping in."

Jack lowered his gun. He glanced at the rest of the team. "Take a walk. I need to have a talk with Owen."

"Skip it. You gave me the talk already." Owen rolled over. "You lot go play in the manor house. I'm staying here. Might go out for lunch." He refused to say another word.

When he was sure they'd gone, he pulled on his clothes. He stuffed the rest of his things into his duffle, grabbed a pastry from the table on his way out the door, and stepped into the cold September morning. There was the young mum, already down the road with her kiddies. The grannies were almost out of sight. The homeless bloke lurked in his usual place as Owen passed by, ignoring his muttered plea for spare change. Owen turned away from where the SUV had been parked and examined the vehicles he came across until he found an unlocked door.

Sliding into the driver's seat, Owen did his best to act like this was his car as he worked under the steering column. He hadn't lifted many cars in his youth, but he knew enough. Within five minutes, the car choked to life. Owen drove towards the highway. He could explain later. He just had to get out of this fucking village and get past the fucking time bubble. He could phone the team later.

He hit a patch of ice not a kilometre out of town. He had seconds to react, turning uselessly into the skid, mouth caught in an obscenity as he slammed into a tree.

***

" _So tell me what you want, what you really really want!_ "

Owen swore.

He managed until breakfast and the tale of Archie and the missing loch. He excused himself back up to his room, where he shot himself.

Moments later, the Spice Girls told him what they really, really wanted. He spent the day feeling more hungover than usual.

***

On good days when he planned perfectly, he could go into Glasgow proper, but he was still stuck. He tried several times to buy his way onto a flight out of Scotland, but he never managed to get off the ground, and the one time he was desperate enough to steal a small private plane, he wound up dead.

He tried walking. He woke up in the same bed listening to the same song.

He tried sailing away on the Clyde. He drowned.

***

Time … passed.

It was impossible to track the passage of days, the same day again and again. He couldn't draw hash marks on his wall, or keep a diary, or write on his own skin, without greeting a bare, blank slate the next morning. He could keep a mental count, had he remembered to start before he lost track after at least a month of Fridays. The truth was, he couldn't recall how long he'd been here. He thought there had to be a difference from the very first day but fuck if he could sort it out.

Morning meant breakfast with the team and a trip out to Torchwood House accompanied by the weather report and Archie's apology. Owen would fuck around for about fifteen minutes, then go to the room where the fucking ghost holoprojector was, thus freeing up the rest of his day before the snow hit.

The young mummy with the kids was named Grace. She liked Oasis and sticky toffees, which Owen learned to fake an interest in around ten o'clock when she dropped the kiddies at pre-school. Their dads had left her when she was pregnant with each one, and she still hated Jim but Steve paid support on time and Grace missed him. She didn't ask a lot of questions. He could usually get into her knickers by noon, half-past on days he bought her lunch. Grace was wet and willing, making the same half-sob every day he slid into her for the first time. Owen tuned her out when she chatted after, taking in a light doze before he dressed and left her there shouting at him.

Finding further companionship wasn't any more difficult than avoiding Team Tossers with a little planning. Owen could meet up with Tamara MacCombe as she joined her mates for lunch at the pub, and he could eat out that night. Joscelyn Black worked on the committee for the Autumn Festival because her maiden Aunt Fran was the head, and Joscelyn was fucking amazing at head.

He spent what might have been months slouching his way from orgasm to orgasm. His days reset, leaving him satisfied and single every morning.

***

It was possible, if one spent several weeks and all his money, to purchase every Lotto scratchcard in a five kilometre radius. After that study, Owen could drop by three particular establishments and walk out with a total of five thousand pounds any time he wished, and a useless ticket in his pocket worth one hundred thousand he'd never be able to collect. As he didn't have to worry about investing in his future, he spent several more weeks discovering how much fun he could purchase in a single day.

This turned out not to be as much fun as he'd hoped. There were only so many more women he could impress flashing his extra cash around. The little village didn't have much of a night life. When he made it into Glasgow itself, he only wound up in trouble and often wound up dead. He could buy expensive meals for everyone he met, from the hot girls to Charlie the pan-handling hobo, but no one remembered or gave a shit the next day.

One day, he flicked open his mobile and began flipping through the contacts list. He would call his mother and he would tell her he was rich.

She would be impressed. Or she would be bored. She would say he'd finally made something of himself. Or she'd ask if he thought he was better than her. She'd ask him what he intended to do with the money, and remind him money couldn't buy one fucking minute of happiness unless he spent it on a whore. Or she'd ask him for a loan.

His hands shook as he reached her name. Before he could make himself press the number, he threw the phone against a wall, shattering it.

***

" _So tell me what you want,_ " said Ginger Spice, and Owen hit the alarm before Scary could get her say. He lay under the covers for a minute. Last night had been spent in Christie's flat, or was it Maisie's? No, Maisie had the distracting nystagmus, and Chrissie complained about her mum after sex. Kirstie's flat.

He got out of the bed he woke up in every morning, and for the first time in ages, decided he was bored enough to go in to work and search for what the fuck was causing this loop. He made his way downstairs, selected bacon and toast and several pastries, and then budged up a place at the Torchwood table.

"And then, Archie said, 'I swear, the loch was here yesterday!'" Jack laughed, the girls tittered, Ianto rolled his eyes. Just like every morning.

Owen said, "I don't intend to spend my day with three of you all bitchy from low blood sugar. Eat these." He shoved a large pastry each in front of Tosh, Gwen, and Ianto. "Prescription from your doctor."

***

Hiding the holoprojector was even easier than locating it every damn day. He had a nice spot behind three boxes where no one ever looked. Chuck it back in the corner, spend the rest of the day searching for his real problem. He started with random searches and realised rapidly that would get him nowhere, and only a methodical investigation in each room one by one would ever get him out of here.

He planned his days around searching, and the nights he didn't spend getting laid, he spent catching up on medical journals he'd meant to read, and trying unsuccessfully to teach himself extra-dimensional physics.

One snowy afternoon when he'd let the team find the holoprojector early, he wandered the shelves of the local library, vainly searching for the right book to read to get him out of this mess. As he turned a corner he'd turned a dozen times, he nearly crashed into a hot girl he didn't recognise. This was enough to startle him out of his thoughts. He'd met every hot girl in the village, and he knew every face in this library. He could set his watch by the exact minute each one would walk by.

"Who are you?" he demanded.

Behind her, an older bloke walked up in a hurry, all annoyance and grey eyebrows. "I told you this was pointless," he muttered in a local accent which didn't fool Owen for a second.

"I saw you. The first day we were here. I remember."

"Sorry, just leaving," said the hot girl with an absent smile. Owen grabbed her arm.

"Wait. You were here, and you haven't been here since." He was cracking up. He knew he'd been cracking up. Now the timeline was changing on him. "You're different!"

"Oh good, someone with half a brain," said Eyebrows. "Clara, I think we can break free of the bubble if we leave at the right time."

"It's a fucking time bubble!" Owen shouted, earning him stern glares from the approaching librarians. He ignored them. "You know about it!"

Clara tilted her head at him oddly. "Yeah. We know. But how do you?"

"I've been fucking stuck here for fucking months with you!"

Okay, the librarians were really quite close now, and very cross, and Owen didn't fucking care. He thought about his actual honest-to-fuck Torchwood training. He stared at Eyebrows. "You're the Doctor."

"Oh, you've heard of me?" Eyebrows asked, instantly flattered.

"Yeah, Jack can't fucking tell us enough."

"Sir," said Maisie Stephens. She was blonde and youngish and she'd worked at the library for six years and could be talked into bed with a lot of booze or a carefully-purchased book, "you are disturbing the other patrons. I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

"Jack?" asked Clara, confused. "I know that name."

"Yes," said the Doctor, frowning.

"Sir!" said Maisie.

"You cannot tell Jack I'm here. I'm not from the correct part of his timeline. If we meet now, it could jeopardise his future involvement with my timeline and interfere with the natural occurrence of...."

Owen had already jammed his finger in his ear. "Jack, the Doctor is here. We'll meet you outside the library in two minutes." He smiled at Maisie. "Sorry, miss. We'll be going."

He grabbed Clara's hand, assuming the Doctor wouldn't abandon another companion as easily as he had Owen's boss. He half-escorted, half-dragged her to the entrance. An out of breath Captain Jack came running round the corner just as Eyebrows stepped outside.

Owen was sure he heard Eyebrows mutter a swear word before he said, "Jack! Didn't expect to find you here."

Jack stopped short when he saw them, trotting closer. Behind him, Owen heard more running. The other three followed, Ianto closest at Jack's heels, and wouldn't that be fun to watch, eh?

"Doctor. Changed things up, have you?"

Eyebrows put on the fakest smile Owen had ever seen. "Nothing to worry about. How many time loops have you been through so far?"

"A thousand or so," said Owen, as Jack said, "What time loops?"

***

They retired to the pub. Jack and the Doctor sat opposite each other. Owen sat in the middle, getting peppered with questions. The rest of the little group clustered around exactly as Owen would have expected, with Ianto and Gwen flanking Jack, Clara at the Doctor's side and her skirt unfortunately hidden from view under the table. Tosh sat across from Owen giving him sympathetic smiles.

"We've been through twice before," Clara said around her wine spritzer. "We keep bouncing back here."

"Small fuss," the Doctor said, locking eyes with Jack. "Hardly a bother. We'll get out this time."

"Are you causing this?" Owen asked. He'd caught up the others briefly on his predicament. They had accepted, with varying degrees of grace, his explanation that he'd been tired of telling them every loop. Ianto still didn't seem to believe him, even with the Doctor sitting right fucking there, but currently he was too busy trying to signal Clara to stop casting flirting glances at You Know Who to bother rolling his eyes at Owen.

"We didn't," the Doctor said. "We came for a quick visit. Something you did must have trapped us here."

"I didn't do anything," said Jack reproachfully. "This is the first I've heard about it." He gave a sidelong look to Owen, but he'd accepted the update without comment. "By the way, when we're done here, I need a word with Owen."

"Got the lecture, thanks. Won't shag Captain Bad Touch any time soon." This earned him glares from around the table and a shrug from Jack.

"Do you have any ideas?" asked Clara. This was addressed not to Owen or the Doctor, but to Toshiko, whom she'd successfully identified as the only person in the room less concerned with who was shagging whom and more with who was fucking with space-time.

"I have to know more about what's going on." Tosh looked at Owen with a weak smile. "You said you've gone through hundreds of loops. Can you remember if you touched anything in the first one that would have done something like this?"

Owen shook his head. "I've been through my original room. I've been through the rooms you lot went through the first day. I can't find anything."

The Doctor asked, "Is there some lesson you need to learn? There are some semi-omnipotent beings floating around who ought to know better but love to put humans through the ringer." He grinned without humour. "Done it myself."

Owen sat back. Could this be a simple matter of having to repent his sins? "They're not specific enough for me to know. And why would you lot be trapped in here with me?"

"For them, it's just one day. We've bounced back in the TARDIS twice. But you, you're reliving day after day. Maybe you were a naughty boy." The Doctor leaned close, leering. "What did you do?"

Jack kept his distance now, watching the two of them. He glanced over at Clara. "I've met two regenerations so far. I've watched seven others from a distance. You've got yourself an odd one on your hands."

Clara sipped her wine spritzer. "So I've noticed."

After another round of drinks and many rounds of questions, they adjourned to the TARDIS. Jack gave a quick explanation to the team, which Tosh drank up, Gwen nodded along to uncomprehendingly, and Ianto ignored in favour of making sarcastic comments under his breath. Owen went to the control in the centre of the room, getting his hands slapped for his trouble as he reached out.

"No," said the Doctor, as if scolding a dog. "She's already upset." He twitched his head over his shoulder at Jack.

"Hey," Jack said, resting his own hand on the console in a fashion that would have got him arrested in half a dozen of the clubs in Cardiff. "The TARDIS and I go way back. She likes me."

"Will this fix the loop?" Owen asked, not wishing to hear about that one time, or several times, his boss shagged the time machine.

"Could be," the Doctor said distractedly, and he threw a lever Owen swore had only grown there that minute.

Several things happened at once. They involved sparks, screams, and a powerful sense of a powerful being angry at him in a powerful and very personal manner.

Owen closed his eyes.

" _So tell me what you want, what you really really want!_ "

He opened his eyes in his borrowed bed in the B&B.

"FUCK!!!!!"

***


	3. Chapter 3

***  
Chapter Three  
***

Eyebrows and Clara were nowhere to be found for the next loop, nor the one after. If they only popped in every several hundred loops, he might not see them for an entire year.

He shot himself twice more.

***

Breakfast was finished, and Owen had made a regular habit of making sure his co-workers were fed. Tosh could be tempted with the pastries if he ate one with her. Gwen could be flattered into abandoning her wedding diet for one day. Owen resorted to enlisting Jack's help in embarrassing Ianto into eating, but it worked, and he didn't have to listen to the hungry bitching later.

As they made their way to the SUV, Charlie the hobo asked for spare change. Before Gwen could dig some coins from her purse, Owen palmed him a handshake with fifty quid. "Don't hug me," he said at Charlie's grateful response. "I don't do hugs."

"Owen?" Tosh said, a bit amazed and a lot startled.

He shrugged off their stares as he walked. "Advanced ascites caused by cirrhosis of the liver. He may as well enjoy his last few days on Earth." Owen had tried buying him dinner, dragging him to hospital, treating him himself. Charlie was past help.

"Bless you!" Charlie shouted after him.

No. There were no blessings left for him, only the guilt at knowing there was nothing he could do.

***

He gave himself weekends. Five days of dusty work in a futile effort to find his way out of this mess could be followed by two days of fucking off. He'd spend a day with one of the ladies on his long list, or he'd take a day at the library reading journals, or he'd continue his slow self-taught lessons on the piano. Some days, he just sat and watched the snow all day, catching the flakes and noting the duplicates from last time.

There was a chance he'd gone mad. He might be in Cardiff right now, bunged into Providence Park with an alien lurking inside his brain eating his memories of one day. The thought inspired him, and he dosed himself with about a week's worth of Retcon.

He woke up to the Spice Girls and a headache.

***

If nothing else, he thought forcing himself into an encyclopaedic knowledge of Torchwood Two's archives would be useful in the future as a party game. Quick, name three alien artefacts that could disintegrate any object up to the size of a cat without leaving any radiation trace behind. Owen could jump up with, "Artaxian death ray, Unspecified Alien Firearm sixty-three B, and Holdor Dental Device." Then everyone else would be forced to take a drink whilst he basked in the glow of their esteem or some shit.

Too bad nothing in his inventory appeared to have any bearing on his predicament. When he found something promising, he told Jack about the time loop, sat through the lecture to make Jack happy, then was disappointed over and again when the device he'd so hopefully uncovered turned out to be a memory display, a faulty premonition activator, or an orgasm-extending marital aid which unsubtly found its way into a pocket of the Captain's greatcoat.

On the quiet days, Owen went through boxes of alien documents, talking Toshiko into running them through translation devices or making Jack scrutinise spindly extraterrestrial handwriting and do his best rough translations. Transit papers were filed away with bills of goods, some of which he could go back and cross-reference to items in storage elsewhere. Some of the documents were letters, lost in the galactic void instead of going home to five-armed Mum.

***

"It's me." He chewed his lip in nerves. Years, bloody years stuck here, and he hadn't made this call.

"Oh." He could hear her disappointment across the line. Had she been expecting a different call? "I'm on my way to work."

"Right. I just... I'll call back later."

"Fine."

***

"It's me." It was later, after her shift would be over, and over a week of Fridays since he'd got up the nerve to do this last time.

"Oh." He heard the same disappointment, but then, he'd been hearing that for years. "I was just on my way out."

"Right." He tugged on his own thin hair. "When are you home, Mother?"

"Later," she said, and the line went dead.

***

He called in the middle of the day.

"It's me."

"Oh."

Before she could make an excuse, he said, "Called in today, did you?"

"I left. They were bastards." She'd been sacked. Owen had run a search.

"How are you, Mother?"

"Fine." He could hear her light a cigarette on the other end, the quick hiss and the odd wash of noise from a cupped hand. "What do you want?"

"I just wanted to say hello." He tried out all the words he wanted to say, could say knowing she'd forget them by the next time loop.

"Hello."

"I'm in Glasgow. For business. And I was thinking of you and thought I'd call." He stumbled quickly through the little he'd planned to say. "I'm learning to play the piano."

"Oh. That's. Hm. Nice." She took a drag on her cigarette. "Look, I was just on my way out."

"Right." He listened as the line went dead.

***

HELP HELP HELP HELP

I AM TRAPPED IN A TIME BUBBLE

The magic marker all over the nice chintz wallpaper bled and smeared as Owen wrote in increasingly desperate lettering across the walls. Ls and Ps dragged down, wiggly at the end or drawn out in slashed strokes.

He ignored the pounding on the door frame. He'd shoved the wardrobe in front, which always kept Jack out for twenty three and a half minutes. He ignored the sweat and tears and snot dripping down his face, down his mouth. He ignored the high-pitched singing from his own throat, "If you want my future, forget my past," chanted over and over.

HELP

The door frame gave way. Owen was ready with his gun, pointed at his own temple.

***

He caught sight of the TARDIS outside his window. As he watched, it flickered in and out of view, engines grinding angrily. The landing on the Plass, caught on the CCTV along with Jack's mad dash, had been a smooth purr in comparison. Eyebrows and Clara were bouncing off the day again.

He burst out the door in time to watch it fade from view, and broke down in tears.

Behind him, he heard running feet, and Jack's desperate, "Was that what I think it was?"

"How long did you wait for him?" Owen turned, seeing the others coming up behind their illustrious leader. They wouldn't let Jack leave again, not without them.

Jack stared at the empty pavement. "Almost one hundred and forty years."

"Shit." Owen punched the ground hard enough that he broke his hand. "SHIT!"

***

He spent one loop in his room writing up a detailed plan as to how he would seduce each of his colleagues. Gwen would be first. He knew all her buttons, and all her insecurities. She'd glare at him, and she'd fight with him, and he could take her dog style, wet for his touch and hating herself for wanting him. Jack should be even easier. He'd made his obnoxious flirty comments since the day Owen was hired, and by all accounts, his mouth was a national fucking treasure. For Tosh, Owen would throw in a touch of romance, which she'd eat up like a sweetie, full of blushes as he held her hand and made false confessions. She'd want to be spread wide on the duvet like a new virgin, and she'd cry when she came. Truth be told, Owen could spend the rest of eternity without tapping Ianto's pasty arse. He supposed he may as well collect the whole set, intentionally pushing their rivalry over the edge as he fucked his way into slick, tight heat.

He wrote down times, and patterns of movement, and who would say what when Owen said this or did that. He accounted for the occasional unpredictability in their responses. Something about the butterfly effect was in play: not every action had the exact same reaction every time.

Then he spent ten minutes shredding the paper into tiny bits, and dropped them like confetti on the carpet.

***

He let Gwen witter at him about the wedding. Most of her words cascaded over him, gradually soaking through.

"You're nervous," he told her during one loop. "You spend all this time wondering if you've made the right choice between your great lump and Captain Dental Care, but the truth is, you're worried you're not good enough for Rhys."

Gwen responded to this alternately angry and relieved. "Yeah," she said, looking away. "He stood by me, no matter what I did." Their affair hung between them unspoken in the air. Owen chose not to say the words this time. "I don't deserve him."

"Look, Gwen. A happy relationship is made up of two tossers who secretly believe the other is too good for them. At the level neither of you deserves the other, you and your haulage hunk will be married for the next seventy years. So finish your wedding plans, already. You know this is the right call."

She smiled at him, the first genuine smile he could remember from her in real months, not just these ersatz days piled on days. "Thank you," she said, and excused herself to go outside and call him.

***

In the mornings right after breakfast, he made up an excuse that Rhys had accidentally dialled his mobile, and that Gwen ought to phone him to check in. She returned from her daily call with her cheeks flushed and happy, and ready to climb into the SUV.

***

Ianto didn't speak to him when they worked. Owen had to drag every single conversation out of him.

"You haven't been sleeping," he said, on a particularly unsuccessful loop. "It's the bags under your eyes that give you away."

"You don't have to worry about my sleeping habits." This was where he normally made an excuse to stalk off. Owen stopped him.

"How long have you been having the nightmares?"

Ianto glared at him and tried to push past, but he always pushed left and Owen was a rock. "I'm your doctor. I need to know if your health is impacted by lack of sleep."

"I'm fine."

"Sure, and I'm the bloody queen. Tell me, or I'll make Jack make you tell me."

Ianto grumbled. "It's nothing. It's … It's been a year."

Owen had trouble with dates these days, but he could hazard a guess. A year ago, for everyone else, Gwen was just joining the team, which meant Ianto had been hiding his girlfriend down in the archives. Crazy wife in the attic, crazy robot in the basement, whatever. He'd been looking at a calendar which no longer applied to Owen, and coming up with a lot of bad memories of dead friends and lost love.

"Did I ever tell you about Katie?"

Ianto shook his head. Owen gave him the summary, the bones of what had happened, and watched the understanding crawl over Ianto's face. "The world goes on without her, and you can't imagine how."

"Yeah."

"But you're braver than I am. Me, I'd rather find a bird with no objections for one night, and never think about tempting that heartbreak all over. You? You're willing to go through it all for the sake of falling in love again."

Ianto looked away and down, not blushing but clearly uncomfortable. "It's not like that."

Owen shrugged. "It could be. Win him a Kewpie doll at the festival. He can't get enough of them, fuck knows why."

***

Toshiko was the hardest, and Owen delayed working with her whenever possible. He couldn't stand the look on her face, the need in her eyes.

***

Trying to chip through Jack's defences was like taking a jackhammer to a diamond, and just as pointless. Some days, Owen told him about the loop. Once or twice, he told him the Doctor was involved.

"So what the fuck was it with you two?" he asked Jack, both of them having abandoned their search for the day the minute Owen came clean about where the holoprojector was.

Jack tried to shrug the question off, but Owen pressed. "It's almost like watching two dogs fight, but not. Did you shag him?"

"That's none of your business."

"So no."

Jack paused for a long time. He hated giving up pieces of himself. "No."

"But you could have."

"Things were different when we travelled together. Rose was there. She was the glue."

"Hot?"

"Oh yeah," Jack said with a filthy chuckle.

"You shag her?"

Jack raised his eyebrows and said neither yes nor no.

Another day, another fresh slate. Owen acted as though he'd only been through a few loops instead of the hundreds he'd lost count of. Jack gave him the friendly lecture and told him to let Tosh ask questions. The familiarity of the litany almost gave him away.

"Why the smile?" Jack asked, halted in the middle of his reminiscence of his own regrets.

"No reason."

Jack wouldn't open up in loops when Owen didn't tell his own secret. Owen tried leading questions and he tried outright demands. His boss remained as inscrutable as an onion. At best he might pull out grains of truth about the others from Jack's vast stores, but of himself he gave away nothing on purpose. Still, Owen had found the best way to dig was the same advice Jack himself gave for effective interrogations: act like you know all the facts and are merely clarifying minor details. In this fashion, Owen had managed ten loops of persistent effort to discover the real story behind Toshiko's recruitment. Five more had revealed that Suzie's account of how she'd met Jack wasn't the complete bullshit he'd always believed the tale to be.

"Ianto told me about the nightmares," he said one afternoon, passing Jack a sealed box which he knew contained spare parts for a radio.

Jack went very still. "All right." Perfect. With the right prods, he'd give away more of what was going on with Ianto, which Owen could take back to Ianto in the next loop and use to get him to open up further. He merely had to play his own part carefully.

"It's not unexpected. Past trauma rears its ugly head at anniversaries and other reminders. Any armchair headshrink knows that."

"Yeah."

"I could prescribe something. It's not a good idea," he added, as Jack said abruptly, "No."

Owen offered up a quick, tight smile. "Interfering with the dream cycle isn't a good solution for the long term."

"I'll be fine," said Jack in a curt tone. "Thanks anyway." And shortly thereafter, he made an excuse and went to work in another room.

Oh.

Owen spent more of his brain power than he liked trying not to consider what the other two blokes on their team did in their off hours together. He didn't want to know, and what he did know told him that like any other workplace affair, his own included, it would end up exploding with the shrapnel hitting everyone around them. He preferred not to get involved past the regular STI tests he gave the entire team. None of his business, and he'd intended to keep things that way.

For the first time, he wondered. Ever since Jack had come back from the dead after Abbadon and everything, Owen had assumed whatever was going on, it was a mutual case of wanting someone around who was willing to suck the other off on request. (He'd learned not to walk into room fourteen between the hours of two and three in the afternoon, and he never, ever wanted to know what flap of the butterfly's wings meant which bloke wound up on his knees.) Now, despite himself, he wondered if it wasn't just about the sex. Dark dreams and regrets were a bitch. Someone else there in the night, someone who understood, might be the only thing standing between you and every horror you'd accidentally released and could never take back. The best anyone could hope for in this world was someone who'd wake you from your nightmares and hold you tight and say everything was going to be okay and tell you they love you.

And that, Owen thought, made whatever those two were doing not just an affair any longer, which in turn made it a lot more dangerous to the rest of them should it come to a sudden end.

***

"I'll do the lunch run today," Owen said as Ianto collected their orders.

"Are you sure?" He looked at Owen with suspicion.

"I'm sure." He knew his way around the village roads well enough to get out and back with no trouble, even with the snow. "I just want to get out of here for a bit."

"Fine. Thanks," he said with a grudging look, and handed Owen the keys.

"No problem, mate."

***

They had dinner at the manor house, effected by Owen's joining in with Archie when he suggested it, and broadly lying that the roads were shit. He wanted a chance to check out the private rooms tonight after the others had gone to bed. To sweeten the deal, he'd packed the picnic hamper with good food and plenty of beer over lunch, and had offered to cook. Cookery wasn't a skill he came to easily. Memorising one good recipe was enough to wow them, though, and he basked in the pleasing glow of his colleagues' thanks.

"Perhaps you'll see some ghosts tonight," Archie said to Jack, tipping back a beer. "I'm sure there are one or two spirits rattling around here who remember you fondly."

Jack chuckled, playing with his water glass. "More than one or two, I'd hope."

Ianto flashed a worried smile at Gwen. "And there was me thinking this place was creepy enough." He left off the unspoken fear of spectral intruders coming in to watch whatever it was Owen didn't want to think about them doing tonight.

"It's not so bad," Gwen said. "I've seen plenty of spooky places since I signed on, and this is more quaint than anything."

To his surprise, Tosh agreed, glancing around the dark corners of the great room. "I like it here. Perhaps get in a maid to deal with the worst of the dust, put in a broadband connection and some greenery, and the ghosts can pull up a chair if they like."

"You're both mad," Ianto said.

"I thought you liked antiques," Jack said. Owen was pretty sure Ianto kicked him under the table, but that only made Jack grin more widely.

He let the team search the archives for the next several hours whilst he made his way through the bedrooms. He'd spent his second night of the loop here, which meant this would likely be a bust. He was out of ideas, honestly. None of the artefacts helped, not even the ones he'd learned were misidentified. The only other two people caught in the loop with him were spending it time-hopping in a blue box, and were singularly unhelpful in getting out.

Also unhelpful was every item he found in tonight's search. No alien rubbish had found its way up here, unless Jack was pocketing that toy again for later in the evening. He found old papers, but nothing interesting. The private letters and such had been cleared for incriminating evidence and donated by the Institute to a museum ages ago. Stuffy people in paintings stared out at nothing and glared at nobody. He could research their names if he wanted, he supposed.

"What are you doing?"

Tosh stood in the doorway of the room. The light from the corridor behind her sent eerie shadows on the wood floor.

"Just looking around. I thought I saw something in here." He gestured at the paintings. "I see dead people."

"Hm." She came in. "She looks sad."

Owen squinted in the dull light. "Yeah. I suppose." He cleared his throat. His attempted search was interrupted, though it wasn't as if he'd expected to find much. "You sure this place doesn't give you the creeps?"

"No, it's nice here. Quiet. Even with the dead people." She nodded at the lady in the portrait. "Sorry," Tosh said to her. "About whatever happened."

He'd have expected Gwen to come up with some kind words or some shit for the old pictures, but even Tosh was able to scrape up a bit of empathy for someone who'd been dead for a century. A spot of guilt nibbled at him, unfamiliar and unwelcome, chasing him down the stairs as the pair of them rejoined the others in the main archives.

***

Archie smoked like a chimney and had a tiny speck of cancerous tissue in his left lung. Owen had scanned, prodded, poked, and questioned for loop after loop, knowing he'd find something. "It's the earliest possible detection," he assured Archie, who took the news with bad grace and a fumbled cigar. Owen read up on current cancer treatments in his evening hours, the noise of the festival coming in through his open bedroom window. The cold air helped him think. The rhythm of the same songs, the same happy screams, the steady bustle of people having fun despite the snow, these became a lulling background white noise to his research.

"It'll be fine," he assured Archie, showing him the test results for the first time. "I just read about a remarkable treatment that should have you right as rain. We can start tomorrow."

"Bless you," Archie said, and he clasped Owen's hand.

***

Mrs. McDaniels and Ms. Barlow lived together and owned one Vauxhall Viva older than Owen. Every day, Ms. Barlow popped a tyre on Buchanan Street, and should Mrs. McDaniels try to fix it herself, her heart would give out. Every day, Owen waited with a trolley jack and a spare, with a bullshit story about the auto club and a stern reminder for Mrs. McDaniels to take her tablets on schedule.

***

Louis Mayhew, aged 9, broke his arm every morning falling out of the tree he oughtn't have been climbing before school. Owen set the bone twice before he scrambled out of the bed, threw on clothes whilst the Spice Girls sang at him, and ran pell-mell five streets away to catch the little bastard before he hit the pavement.

"You never thank me!" Owen shouted at the retreating back of the boy.

***

"I'll do the lunch run," Owen said, just as Ianto was collecting their orders.

Ianto's eyes narrowed. "Are you sure?" He clutched the keys in his hand, a nervous gesture Owen had learned to read.

"I'm sure. I've had more practise than you driving on icy roads." Too right, though he'd come up with a cover story for the times Ianto asked when on Earth Owen would have had a chance for that. No further questioning came. Owen added, "Need a break from this place anyway. My eyes are crossing."

"Fine." Reluctant gratitude crossed his face as he handed over the keys and the orders. "Thank you."

"No problem, mate. By the way, Captain Jack needs a hand in room fourteen." He always did on the days Owen remembered to lean that Olandan hoover on its side.

Mr. Thomas took lunch down the pub and ordered a steak, medium well, with a jacket potato. Not that the bloke couldn't do to miss a few meals, Owen always thought as he huffed and chuffed his way through the Heimlich manoeuvre to dislodge a piece of meat from the man's thick throat.

"You're welcome," he said, and yeah, he enjoyed the attention from the other customers quite a bit. No time to stick around for proper thanks. Kerry McWilliam would be slipping on the ice three blocks away soon enough, and if he grabbed her arm in time, she wouldn't crack her head on the pavement.

"You need better shoes," he told her, every day before he dashed off to prevent the bunting collapse, then had a quick chat with Jimmy Paulk before he made a terrible decision.

Some days, he forgot to fetch lunch entirely.

***

The fucking butterfly flapped its bloody wings. Almost every day went precisely as he planned. For all that rubbish about free will and independent thought, his ordeal had taught Owen a human was as easily programmable as an abacus. Move one bead, the others go this way, clean and easy. Compliment Joscelyn on her earrings, and pop open her legs. Hand the winning scratchcards to Maisie for the library, get a snog for his trouble and when he wanted, a fantastic evening later. Give Gwen a nudge, and she'd spend half the day on her mobile telling that fat lump how much she missed him; nudge her a different way and she'd spend the day shouting at him. Mention fucking Kewpie dolls to either Jack or Ianto, and they'd spend the day out of his hair and shagging like weasels that night.

He'd have expected Toshiko to be the most computer-like, considering. He could coax her into eating breakfast, and on the loops where Jack made Owen let her ask questions, she asked the same questions. Except sometimes, she didn't.

"What would you say your current psychological state is?" she asked, pushing her glasses up on her nose as she typed into her data pad.

"Half mental."

"Only half? I don't know how I would survive it," she said. "Nothing new under the sun ever? I couldn't do it."

But one time when she asked, and he replied, she said, "That has to be fascinating. You're experiencing life more fully than anyone ever has. You can live through every single possibility. You can explore every opportunity. There are no missed chances, no regrets."

"Yeah," he said, a little startled. "Done that."

"Everything?" she asked, with a hint of impish grin that covered what he could see was also a hopeful one.

And what to tell her? "Almost everything. I have to give myself something to do tomorrow, right?"

"Right."

The questions returned to their usual pattern, and the next time, she went back to her same old answers.

***


	4. Chapter 4

***  
Chapter Four  
***

He caught sight of the TARDIS again. This time, he watched it flicker into view in front of the old town hall, a building Torchwood had donated to the village about a million fucking years ago. Within a few minutes, the familiar engine noise had faded from earshot. Another year.

"What was that?" asked Saundra Boyd, soon to be Saundra Boyd-Stirling.

"Nothing at all." Owen wiped his face with his hand. "All right, are you ready? Because you know Rhona's already at the Registrar waiting for you. She's wearing that mad gorgeous dress you love, and she loves you."

Saundra chewed her lip. "You're sure it's the right thing to do?"

"I'm sure. I'll even be a witness."

She grinned and hugged him. If he held his arm out just right, she wouldn't choke him as she did. "Thank you. Thank you so much." She let Owen drag her towards the Registrar's office where her blushing bride to be would not get left at the altar today. Owen would sign the paper for them, and he would smile as they kissed, and he would go back to his damn room and shoot himself in honour of another year here before waking up tomorrow and talking Saundra into this all over again.

***

Toshiko said, "There's something wrong."

Owen looked up from his work. Nothing here to see, really. He'd mentally catalogued this room already, but she insisted on working here, and he'd been trying to find a way to talk with her. Nevertheless, they'd spent the last hour in silence. "What did you find?"

She stared at him. "Something's wrong with you. You're twitchy and upset." She set her scanner to one side and adopted a listening stance he knew very she well she was copying from Gwen's usual 'interrogate the witness' collection of interested poses. "What's going on with you?"

Her voice flooded with concern, but then it always did. He'd have to be blind, deaf, and stupid not to notice how she'd acted around him since the day he'd joined this mad organisation. Even his first week on, she'd covered for him. But she'd been too needy, too weak, and honestly, too willing. Anyone who could look at him and see someone worthwhile under all his well-sculpted bullshit, well, that meant they were either an idiot or dangerously perceptive. He see-sawed in his opinion of her, and held her at a contemptuous length.

"It's been a long day," he said, and rubbed his face. "A really, really long day."

She tilted her head. "You don't mean since we've been here at Torchwood House."

Dangerously perceptive. As she placed a comforting hand on his, he knew she was also dangerously kind. And he knew too that the contempt with which he held her at bay wasn't directed at her, and never had been. She was a kinder friend than he deserved, and he'd pushed her away.

"I'm caught in a time loop. I keep repeating the day over and over."

"My God. How long?"

"Years. I don't know how many."

She threw her arms around his neck. "I'm so sorry."

"You believe me? Because I've had to prove this before." Funny, though. He'd never told just Tosh before.

"I believe you." She pulled back from the hug.

"Don't tell the others? I can't live through another lecture from Jack about proper time loop etiquette."

She laughed, brushing her hair from her face. "How bad is it? Do you know what caused it?"

He shook his head. "The Doctor's stuck here, too. He's bounced in a couple of times."

She smiled softly. "I met him once. Did I tell you?"

"Yeah." And now that he knew everything he did, he wondered how much it had killed Jack not to take the space pig assignment himself, how long he'd sat listening through Tosh's comm and knowing he didn't dare interfere even after a century of waiting. Owen had only waited a few years, and he was half-mad with fear that he'd never get out of here.

"Owen?" Her face was sad, concerned.

He brushed away the terror. "Archie's ghosts are caused by a holoprojector in room seven. Gwen can make it work because she's kind of psychic. It's dull."

"All right. And no idea what's keeping you here?"

"I've been searching, Tosh. Nothing here could have done it."

She turned away, lifting her scanner and readjusting the settings. "I'll scan what we find."

Defeat sagged his shoulders. "We have already. A ton of times."

"Then we'll try again," she said with an unusual confidence.

True to her word, she didn't tell the others, not even when Jack called off the search due to the snow. "We could stay," she said to Owen, who only shrugged.

"We've stayed before," he told her. He'd meant to tell her more. Perhaps on the next loop.

Back at the village, Gwen talked Toshiko into going to the festival with her whilst Jack and Ianto made to sneak off and back to the B&B. There was a suspicious bulge in Jack's greatcoat pocket. Before they could go, Owen said, "Ianto, win him a Kewpie doll at the bloody festival."

"Ooo," Jack said, face suddenly lit up. "I do love Kewpie dolls." He linked his arm with Ianto's. "Did I ever tell you they're based on Turanian fertility idols?" He launched into his usual bullshit story, leading Ianto away.

"Come on," Gwen said, grabbing Owen's arm before he could object. "We'll all go. You can win us some Kewpie dolls as well."

Owen tried to beg off. He'd been to the festival once or twice on the pull and he'd not been impressed by the carnival games and pie contest, and he actively mocked the saddos who got sucked into the bachelor auction. He'd signed up one loop and been purchased by Mrs. McDaniels and Ms. Barlow, who between them were older than Jack. Never again.

Tosh smiled at him tonight and said, "It could be fun. Take your mind off things." He protested once more, but weakly, then let himself be dragged along.

As they reached the pie contest, Mrs. Pontroy waved happily. "Doctor Harper! Didn't expect to see you here!"

"Just looking at things," he said. "How's Mr. Pontroy?"

"Those tablets you gave him for his angina really cleared him up, thanks."

"Good, good."

"When did you give someone tablets?" Gwen asked, curious.

"Ah, well. I went out for the lunch orders, and ran into her." Also Mr. Thomas, who hurried up to Owen and gratefully shook his hand.

"Doctor, I can't thank you enough for what you did."

"What did you do?" Gwen asked. Tosh covered her mouth with a hand, giggling.

Owen said, "It was nothing, mate. Chew your food next time, right?"

"Nothing? You saved my life, sir. You probably hear that every day, but it means the world to me." Mr. Thomas clapped him on the shoulder. "Ladies, this is the best man I know."

When they'd wandered further off, Tosh prodded him. "Busy day?" Her eyes glittered.

"Bit." Over at the fairway, he saw faces, bodies. Joscelyn was helping her Aunt Fran Line up blokes for the bachelor auction, and over near the ducking for apples booth, he could see the pantomime of Jack trying to talk Ianto into signing them both up, an argument Owen knew for a fact Ianto won every single night. Maisie Stephens worked at a booth promoting fun activities at the library, and squealed when Owen and the girls came by.

"Doctor Harper!" she said, delighted. "Thank you for the generous donation. The trustees are going to redesign the children's section, and we'd love for you to attend the renaming ceremony after the work is completed next spring." She leaned in. "They're talking about naming it after you. But I didn't say anything."

"Owen?" Gwen asked, stunned. "What did you do?"

"It was nothing. I bought a Lotto scratchcard at lunch. Whim. I didn't need the cash."

"Gwen, I'm mad starving," Tosh said. "Could I beg you to get us some meat pies?"

"Only if Owen swears to say what's going on."

"Nothing's going on, Gwen. It's just been a long day." Together, they watched her get into the line for the pies, then Tosh dragged him around the corner of one booth. He half expected to be snogged.

"My God, Owen. How do you spend your days?" She shook her head. "Honestly? I would have expected to hear that you'd shagged half the village." Across the way, he saw Grace lead one of the kids to the pony rides. Steve carried the other kid, but then, he'd got an anonymous call this morning that he needed to step up or someone would tell his mother and his employer about his embarrassing personal problem.

She followed his gaze. "It sounds instead like you saved it."

"Maybe I did both." Another movement of people. There!

Owen grabbed Tosh's hand and dragged her over to the knife-throwing stall, ignoring her protests.

"Good evening, Doctor," he said to Eyebrows. He offered a tight smile to Clara. "Came to visit?"

"Doctor?" Tosh asked, looking between them. "Another face, another companion. You were with Rose when we first met."

"Who's Rose?" Clara asked.

"Never mind," said the Doctor.

Owen said, "Jack's right over there. I could shout and bring him over. You get us out of here yet?"

"I know very well where he is," said Eyebrows, rubbing his temple as if he had a headache. "No."

Clara took his arm. "He promised me a visit to the carnival on Galaxis Nine." She put on the current Doctor's broad brogue. "'A mile high Ferris wheel, Clara. Goldfish can win you in giant bowls!'"

"I never said anything about giant goldfish. And stop talking like that."

"You also never took me there. We're stuck in bloody Glasgow again. It's been days."

"Years," said Owen. Tosh squeezed his hand.

"Look," she said. "We're all caught here. May as well make the best of it, even if some of us won't remember in the morning." She laughed, catching his eye. "Typical day, then."

"Yeah."

Tosh's handbag began beeping. She stared at it. Owen stared at it.

"What's that?" Clara asked, as she pulled her scanner out.

"I left the scan running." She turned until the beep became a whine. "It's picked up something."

"Give me that," said the Doctor, but Owen grabbed it faster.

"This way," he said, out of breath and terrified. He ran, Tosh beside him and the other two at their heels. They passed Gwen, who held three meat pies in her hands.

"What's going on?" he heard her ask before she fell into the run with them. They followed the signal to the games booths at the fairway. As Owen watched, a ring flew into the air and neatly circled a milk bottle.

"Three," said Ianto, a bit smugly. He nodded to the boy behind the table. That would be James Paulk, Jimmy to his friends, a good kid if he'd stop hanging out with those hoodlums from the school. "That'll be one doll."

"The other one," Jack said, as Jimmy's hand went to grab one of several identically ugly dolls. Jimmy took the one Jack indicated.

Just before they reached the booth, the Doctor suddenly acted very casual, as though he were uninterested in the proceedings. He tilted his head obviously to Clara to look away. Gwen stared at the two of them curiously.

"Who...."

Owen cleared his throat and held up the scanner. "Give me that Kewpie doll, Jimmy."

"Sure thing, Doctor Harper."

"I just won that," Ianto said. Owen ignored him. The signal came from inside the toy.

"You are fucking kidding me."

Jack turned. "Where did these come from?"

Jimmy, surprised by the scrutiny, backed away. "Ms. Black found them, packed away in the back of the hall." He cleared his throat. "Hey, grandpa. Win a doll for your friend there? It's for charity."

Eyebrows continued his casual bystander act. Surprised, he said, "What? Us? Oh no."

Clara snickered, and in a terrible Scottish accent, she said, "Yeah, grandpa. Win me a Kewpie doll."

He took her arm and turned her away from the others.

Owen was thinking it all through. "Jimmy," said Owen. "You don't mean the old hall? The one on third street, with the bad pipes?" Jimmy nodded.

Jack followed his train of thought. "Torchwood Two used to own a building on Third Street. They sold it in the eighties."

Toshiko said, "They must have left some things behind. The Kewpie dolls."

"They're alien?" Gwen asked, a bit incredulous.

"That's what they look like," Jack said. "Earth toymakers got the idea when a couple of Turanian idols got loose."

He played with the doll, making it bounce. This being Captain Jack, even a dancing ugly toy seemed lascivious. Behind him, the Doctor waved a glowy wand, whilst placing his finger to his lips. The wand beeped, and he stuck it behind his back before Jack turned to see what the noise was.

Clara turned away. "Grandpa, silence your ring tone." She kept the bad accent. Eyebrows glared. She smiled sweetly back at him.

Gwen stared between the two of them until Toshiko tapped her own the shoulder. For Gwen and Ianto's sakes, she mimed with startling clarity that this was the Doctor, and that if they didn't want their boss fucking off again into outer space or destroying all of space and time, it was in everyone's best interests not to let on.

"Bloody hell, Tosh," said Owen. "Next time we do charades, I'm on your team."

Ianto put on a fake smile and placed a hand on Jack's shoulder, turning him back to face the booth and away from You Know Who.

"Let me see that scanner," Jack said. Owen handed it to him, sticking his body in the line of sight between him and the two time travellers. It didn't help that Eyebrows was about three feet taller than he was. It did help that Jack didn't often go for geezers.

"This is weird," Jack said.

"It's been altered," said the Doctor in a harsh whisper. "Time lock." He covered his mouth and turned away again.

Toshiko piped up, "What about a time lock? Could it be causing the time loop?"

"What time loop?" Jack asked. Tosh grabbed the scanner back.

Ianto said, "We'd like to see the rest of those dolls."

Jimmy stood back, but a quick look from Owen got him to take the set out of the box and place them in front of the team. 

"These are normal," Tosh said. "I think."

Jack nodded. "For Turanian idols. Low level arousal field. Great party toy."

"For God's sake," came a quiet and exasperated voice from behind Owen.

"What's this one doing?" Gwen asked, pointing at the signal from the one Ianto had won.

"Looks like it was reprogrammed," Jack said. "If I'm reading this right, it's trying to start a time lock." He frowned. "Invasion technique. Lock the planet, take over at your leisure. It's malfunctioned, though. See?" He turned it around, showing the innards on the scanner's screen. "Whoever made this must have built the device as a trap. Looks like Torchwood Two got hold of the lot first."

"And forgot about the box," Ianto said.

Tosh said, "Owen, did you do something to the doll?"

He thought back. His first day here was lost in a sea of memories, sex, and suicides. Someone else could have won it, though, and bumped into him, and he'd never have noticed. 

"Right," said Owen, who grabbed the doll. "Gwen, I saw you swipe that disintegrator. Still got it?"

Gwen shrugged and pulled an alien gun from her own handbag. Silently, she handed the weapon over to Owen.

"Wait," said Jack. "If we destroy the Turanian idol, we might set off the trap. We could freeze time on Earth."

"Could be," Owen said, and tossed the doll into the air, vaporising it.

He waited. Around them, the lights and sounds of the carnival went on.

"Didn't freeze the world," Owen said. He also didn't reset or feel different or anything.

"That was very stupid," Jack said.

Owen shrugged, a little disappointed. "I've been stuck in a time loop for four years. It was worth trying."

"You _what_?"

Ianto turned back to the booth, where Jimmy stood astounded at what he'd just witnessed. He placed another five quid on the table. "Three more rings, please."

Gwen offered Owen one of the meat pies, which had just started to get cold. Behind them, Clara informed Eyebrows he owed her a ride on the Ferris wheel.

"It could be worse," Tosh said a bit later. Gwen had gone off to heckle the bachelor auction, where Clara had put up Eyebrows for a night's rental. Jack and Ianto had disappeared shortly after the acquisition of four Turanian fertility idols from Jimmy's booth. "Jack's told me a little about that time loop with Captain Lunkhead. They died a lot. It was pretty terrible. You're here with us. That's got to be better."

"Yeah," said Owen. Around them, people milled and went on enjoying this same bright moment of their little lives that they'd relived for years on end. One good day ticked over and over in the gently falling snow, the lights of Glasgow proper hanging in an orange glow over their heads, and no one would ever grow old, ever get sick, ever die. They'd be here forever like figures in a snow globe. The whole world would, maybe. No more wars. No more death. No more growing up. No more growing old with someone.

"Tosh?"

She turned to look at him. The falling snow hit her hair in just the right way, made her lovely in a way she wasn't often. Or maybe he'd finally started noticing.

The words finally came. "You deserve a better man than I am. You deserve better everything than me." He closed his eyes. "That's why. When you wonder why, that's why. Because I'm not a good person, and you deserve the best. You won't remember this tomorrow, but you should know it."

Her cheeks flushed, and she took his arm again, walking with him through the crowd of faces he knew too well. As they walked, people waved, and shouted their thanks, or laughed merrily in his direction.

"You're a better man than you think you are," she said after a long time. "And some of us already knew it. Want to ride the Ferris wheel?"

She came back to his room after, and that was a bit weird as he cleared off a space for her to sit. The carpet was clean, but he could see the ghosts of the torn up papers on the floor, could read the invisible letters he'd scrawled on the wallpaper.

From the room next door, he heard laughter. He'd given Gwen his mobile after her battery died and he'd told her to call Rhys. Maybe they'd have phone sex. Maybe they would just enjoy each other's voices. He couldn't hear a thing from the next room over, and he was very, very glad.

"Talk to me," Tosh said. "Let's wait out the loop. Tell me all the things you did today." She scooted back on his bed, resting on one of the pillows. After a moment, he climbed in on the other side and rested.

"Well, I try to get you lot fed before I start, but usually I duck out first for a little shit named Louis Mayhew. He was there tonight."

"His mother was the one who kissed you on the cheek?"

"That's her."

"Tell me more."

***

" _So tell me what you want, what you really really want,  
I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna really really really wanna zigazig ha_"

Owen lay there listening, and buried his face in the pillow. He reached out to turn off the alarm, but met something in the way.

"Don't," Tosh said sleepily. "I like that one."

He sat straight up. "Tosh?"

"Hm?"

"You're here."

"I fell asleep. Sorry."

"Yeah." His mind spun. Tosh was here, and as weird as that might be on a normal day, he hadn't lived through a normal day in a very long time. Owen jumped out of bed, tangling his legs and falling to the floor as he did. "Ow."

"Are you all right?"

He didn't reply until he'd crawled over to the window. Pulse racing, mouth dry, he peeked out through the lace curtains.

A deep blanket of snow covered the garden outside his window.

"Yeah. I'm good."

"Good."

Tosh wiped the sleep from her eyes. She had morning hair and morning breath and morning face, and he'd never seen so glad a sight in all his days. "Tosh, if I never tell you again, you're the most beautiful thing I have ever seen."

She frowned, and then her memories flickered over her face. "The time loop. Is it over? Owen, did you break it?"

"It had to be that fucking doll." 

Toshiko reached for her handbag, which she'd left on the floor. She pulled out her scanner and began running it over him. "We should scan your brain when we're back at the Hub to look for neural growth. You said it's been years. Do you still remember everything that happened to you? You should really document the experience." She typed into the data pad. Owen stared at her for a moment, then took her hands and set the scanner down.

"It can wait."

She looked as though she were about to argue with him, and instead she wrapped him into a hug. "I'm sorry. I'm happy for you, Owen. You must be so relieved."

He was. Even as he accepted the hug, wave after wave of relief flowed through him. He thought about the things he had to do. He had patients he should check up on, including Archie. He should check up on Saundra and Rhona, and make sure Jimmy was staying away from his mates. And he had some decisions to ponder.

Five years here meant he knew everyone and everything. He carried a perfect mental catalogue of Torchwood Two's archives, and Archie was getting on in years. He could use help here, even train a replacement. Owen knew Toshiko didn't have much time left on the terms of her contract with Torchwood Three, and Jack was soft enough to let her out of it for the right reason. Not that Owen couldn't get on without her, he thought hurriedly, breaking the hug. But she was good to have around, and she liked it here.

Five years also meant he hadn't been in his own home in his own bed in half a decade. Cardiff was a hole, but he missed it, missed the city nights and the stinking Weevils and even the rain. He hadn't seen rain in five years. Settling down in a village he'd killed himself to escape on multiple occasions didn't sound like an idea the old Owen would have. He would need time away from this hellhole to decide if he'd grown to love the place and the people, or if he'd come down with a case of Stockholm syndrome in the midst of losing his mind. Maybe both.

Tosh's frown broke into his mental quandary. "You're thinking something."

"Usually am. Just getting my bearings. Tomorrow is another day and all that shit, yeah?" But tomorrow was today, for the first time in a long, long time, and he couldn't wait to see what that meant.

Outside, he heard a familiar grinding noise, the sound of the TARDIS fading away just out of sight. He almost burst out the bedroom door then, to pound on the walls and tell the world and wake up his friends with the truth of everything that had happened. Instead, he settled back onto the bed to relax. After a moment, Tosh sat beside him. He could let the others have a lie-in. Gwen had been on the phone all night and would be tired. The other two had spent the night exploring the uses of four Turanian fertility idols as well as an alien orgasm device. They might not be heard from for a week.

And besides, it was Saturday.

***  
The End  
***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previous reel_torchwood fics:
> 
> [Jack Harkness and the Chocolate Factory](http://archiveofourown.org/works/98081) (Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory)  
> [The Extraterrestrial](http://archiveofourown.org/works/98087) (E.T.)  
> [The Day the Dragons Came](http://archiveofourown.org/works/153657) (Reign of Fire)  
> [Just Because They Protect You Doesn't Mean They Like You](http://archiveofourown.org/works/518945) (Clerks)  
> [Back, and Back, and Back a Little More (Future Optional)](http://archiveofourown.org/works/976891) (Back to the Future)  
> [The Valentine's Day Massacre](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3163880/chapters/6869051) (The Valentine's Day Massacre)


End file.
